The Evolution Jihad
The powers of entertainment and evangelism work side by side to engage the fickle attention of American youth, challenge their vacuous moral commitments and offer them the hope of true freedom in Christ. In this culture, a successful invasion or crusade cannot be made without either of these two elements. You must win the people and then you must show them the truth.
Unfortunately, the attention span of American young people, in college and high school, has shrunk. The window of communication has reshaped itself to be less and less compatible with the full Gospel message as traditionally presented. Shorter sermons, jazzed-up outreach events and increasing outputs of youth-oriented Christian multimedia haven't kept the church in line. More than 80% of young people raised in church will leave, heart and body, before they're done with school.
If Jesus's parable of the single lost sheep out of the 99 can be applied here, the appropriate response is to follow the wayward sheep out of the fold, identify the snares and fetch them back, bringing along those yet to be found. How much more vital is such an expedition if 80 of the flock are gone and countless others linger outside the walls of the fold?
The success of such expeditions has been limited by the cynicism of the flock. This culture has been saturated with Christian-related media, with accurate and inaccurate gospels. Church signs spring Gospel-in-a-box catchphrases on passersby, TBN broadcasts steal 5 seconds of time for the Gospel even from the most disinterested channel surfer, Rick Warren bombards the culture with hope in the form of millions of books sold; Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins even got millions to think of the "End Times." Add to those far-reaching outpourings of Christianity the generally unfriendly attention of Hollywood, where Christian symbols, preachers and slightly skewed renditions of the Gospel make constant appearances as stylistic motifs for movies and television shows.
As a result of this information overload, most young people feel that they know the gist of Christianity. Not only are they sure to know a church-goer, they've seen representatives on book covers, TV and streetside signs. Hence their hesitance in the face of evangelism.
Jul 8, 2007
May 15, 2007
ENGL 222
Professor Bonca
Sam Lively
18 May 2007
The American Man-Eater
The seductress weaves a fatal web of enchantment for her victims, but for the unravaged onlooker her illusionary powers are pleasantly intoxicating. In The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman the seductress is the “American Dream,” and even as she robs her victims of life and fortune, their commitment to her is undying. Though her wake is cluttered with their broken hearts, many of the survivors gladly carry her train in spellbound reverence. The secret to her reason-defying success lies in her victims and her audience’s capacity to dream. For Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, Nick Carraway and Linda Loman, the victims and their audience respectively, the greatness of their improbable dreams far outweighs the opposing facts of reality.
The American Dream is a loaded and a little misleading name. Dream is a collective term in her case: she welcomes all dreams, so long as they are attached to dreaming men. No dream is too grand or subtle for her if it is fervently wished for. Yet Dream is a misnomer for her; it does not express her complete nature. A mere body of wishes, however vast and beautiful, does not move men as dramatically as she does.
The promise of fulfillment animates her body, and flaunts it before the lusting eyes of men, like the naked blonde in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. American Promise fits her better than American Dream. Men are drawn to her not just as a representation of their desires, but because she appears to be an extravagantly generous benefactor.
The promise of so many dreams demands an impressive substantiation to win the skeptical hearts of men. America fits the bill. When Nick Carraway views New York through the imagined eyes of its first settlers he sees a “fresh, green breast” (Fitzgerald 180). America’s breast drips promise that triggers the voracious appetites of ambitious dreamers.
Carraway goes on to describe the full effect of beholding the American Dream, the American Promise for the first time: “for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder” (…).
Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman have an immense capacity for wonder. Neither restrains their hopes to the stuff of earth, nor lies content in abstract contemplation; both desire physical, financial, emotional and spiritual satisfaction within the time frame of their stay on earth. Gatsby expects to be able to “repeat the past.” When Carraway gently reminds of the impossibility of that hope, Gatsby responds, incredulously, “Can’t repeat the past! Why of course you can!” (Fitzgerald 110). Loman thinks he can be well-liked, rich, enjoy a Hollywood-style funeral upon his death and have his glorious legacy extended and expanded by his sons.
This shared characteristic draws them both to the “fresh, green breast.” For each, the unveiling of that sight is a powerful moment, akin to the settler’s first view of the new world, though the sight comes in remarkably different manifestations. Gatsby sees “out of the corner of his eye… that the blocks of sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees- he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the comparable milk of wonder” (…). Gatsby would never shake this image from his brain. When he pours this euphoria into his relationship with Daisy, that relationship becomes his life.
Loman’s experience lacks such a cosmic scale of description, but it pulls with equal gravity on his life. He tells the inspirational story of super-salesman Dave Singleman: “Old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his velvet green slippers and- I’ll never forget- pick up his phone and call his buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized selling was the greatest career a man could want” (Miller 81). Singleman is a shriveled form of the breast, but those velvet slippers are more than green and inviting enough to become Loman’s most sought-after prize.
Sadly for these two men, the ladder of Gatsby’ dream is not as concrete as the sidewalk and salesman career produced only street-worn leather for Loman’s velvet appetite. Gatsby’s fantasy of marriage of Daisy collides with the too-solid frame of Tom Buchanan, her husband. Though he invades Daisy’s life bearing the spoils of financial conquest she had demanded of him, he can not drive the love of Tom from her heart.
Loman fails even to approximate Singleman’s success. His sales fall short of paying even the mortgage. As he ages, his boss refuses to free him from the taxing roads to work from the cushy confines of his own neighborhood, effectively exiling him from the comfort he worked his entire life to achieve. His fallback plan of raising a Singleman from his sons burns from flames ignited by his chosen prospect, Biff. Biff urges his father to join him in the arson: “Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” (Miller 133).
Gatsby and Loman are not willing to acknowledge or escape their escalating funeral pyres. Both aid the seductress by accepting hallucinogenic reproductions of her promises when reality has rejected her originals as counterfeits. The grim specter of Death cannot break the spell she has bound them within. Gatsby waits stubbornly in his pool for Daisy’s phone call, even as she and Tom set events in motion that bring about his death. Loman one-ups Gatsby by killing himself in a sort of desperate Plan C, hoping that his life insurance money will propel the downward spiraling Biff to glorious heights.
In perhaps an even greater feat than her destruction of Gatsby and Loman, the great seductress charms two individuals who would have the greatest reason to denounce her as a tramp. Nick Carraway and Loman’s wife Linda rarely find fault with their companions’ infatuations with unattainable goals, before or after their tragic deaths. On the contrary, they often applaud their willingness to attempt impossible ventures. Carraway gushes of Gatsby’s greatness, his “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life” and the “romantic readiness” (Fitzgerald 2); never mind that these fine qualities helped condemn him to a grisly murder.
Linda never faults her husband for his failure; she only faults her sons’ failure to acknowledge the greatness of their father. When they jointly question him, she berates them. She asks, “And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When does he get a medal for that? Is this his reward- to turn around at the age of sixty-three and find his sons, who he loved better than life” questioning him (Miller 57)? For a mother to turn on her own sons rather than acknowledge the error of her husband’s actions testifies to the extent of the seductress’ entrapment.
Carraway and Linda Loman have a fervent appreciation for their grandiose dreamers. They do not separate their loyalty to the man from their loyalty to his dreams. They do not want one without the other. If death comes, let him take the whole package, and not leave an empty husk of a man. Carraway says that “Gatsby turned out all right at the end” (Fitzgerald 2). He blames the unpleasantness on the “foul dust,” i.e. the friends who did not appreciate him, that “floated in the wake of his dreams” (…). Linda doesn’t mind the grave if it is not left unattended. Her prominent desire is that respectful attention “be finally paid to such a man” (Miller 56).
Out of the wake of inattentive and indifferent dust emerges the form of the seductress, the American Dream, the American Promise, the American Man-Eater. Amidst the ruin and heartbreak, her illusions vividly depict the ached-for desires of a man’s heart. Her call inspired men to accomplish deed mighty enough to leave a wake, foul or otherwise. These are the attributes of the sly snake and the majestic lioness that whisper for humans to stretch trusting hands into the beautiful asps’ den or lie beside the gently heaving side of the lion. Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, and their ardent devotees, prefer the fatal kisses of the snake and lion to the calloused lifestyle that ignored such delightful whispers.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 2004.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1976.
Professor Bonca
Sam Lively
18 May 2007
The American Man-Eater
The seductress weaves a fatal web of enchantment for her victims, but for the unravaged onlooker her illusionary powers are pleasantly intoxicating. In The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman the seductress is the “American Dream,” and even as she robs her victims of life and fortune, their commitment to her is undying. Though her wake is cluttered with their broken hearts, many of the survivors gladly carry her train in spellbound reverence. The secret to her reason-defying success lies in her victims and her audience’s capacity to dream. For Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, Nick Carraway and Linda Loman, the victims and their audience respectively, the greatness of their improbable dreams far outweighs the opposing facts of reality.
The American Dream is a loaded and a little misleading name. Dream is a collective term in her case: she welcomes all dreams, so long as they are attached to dreaming men. No dream is too grand or subtle for her if it is fervently wished for. Yet Dream is a misnomer for her; it does not express her complete nature. A mere body of wishes, however vast and beautiful, does not move men as dramatically as she does.
The promise of fulfillment animates her body, and flaunts it before the lusting eyes of men, like the naked blonde in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. American Promise fits her better than American Dream. Men are drawn to her not just as a representation of their desires, but because she appears to be an extravagantly generous benefactor.
The promise of so many dreams demands an impressive substantiation to win the skeptical hearts of men. America fits the bill. When Nick Carraway views New York through the imagined eyes of its first settlers he sees a “fresh, green breast” (Fitzgerald 180). America’s breast drips promise that triggers the voracious appetites of ambitious dreamers.
Carraway goes on to describe the full effect of beholding the American Dream, the American Promise for the first time: “for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder” (…).
Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman have an immense capacity for wonder. Neither restrains their hopes to the stuff of earth, nor lies content in abstract contemplation; both desire physical, financial, emotional and spiritual satisfaction within the time frame of their stay on earth. Gatsby expects to be able to “repeat the past.” When Carraway gently reminds of the impossibility of that hope, Gatsby responds, incredulously, “Can’t repeat the past! Why of course you can!” (Fitzgerald 110). Loman thinks he can be well-liked, rich, enjoy a Hollywood-style funeral upon his death and have his glorious legacy extended and expanded by his sons.
This shared characteristic draws them both to the “fresh, green breast.” For each, the unveiling of that sight is a powerful moment, akin to the settler’s first view of the new world, though the sight comes in remarkably different manifestations. Gatsby sees “out of the corner of his eye… that the blocks of sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees- he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the comparable milk of wonder” (…). Gatsby would never shake this image from his brain. When he pours this euphoria into his relationship with Daisy, that relationship becomes his life.
Loman’s experience lacks such a cosmic scale of description, but it pulls with equal gravity on his life. He tells the inspirational story of super-salesman Dave Singleman: “Old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his velvet green slippers and- I’ll never forget- pick up his phone and call his buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized selling was the greatest career a man could want” (Miller 81). Singleman is a shriveled form of the breast, but those velvet slippers are more than green and inviting enough to become Loman’s most sought-after prize.
Sadly for these two men, the ladder of Gatsby’ dream is not as concrete as the sidewalk and salesman career produced only street-worn leather for Loman’s velvet appetite. Gatsby’s fantasy of marriage of Daisy collides with the too-solid frame of Tom Buchanan, her husband. Though he invades Daisy’s life bearing the spoils of financial conquest she had demanded of him, he can not drive the love of Tom from her heart.
Loman fails even to approximate Singleman’s success. His sales fall short of paying even the mortgage. As he ages, his boss refuses to free him from the taxing roads to work from the cushy confines of his own neighborhood, effectively exiling him from the comfort he worked his entire life to achieve. His fallback plan of raising a Singleman from his sons burns from flames ignited by his chosen prospect, Biff. Biff urges his father to join him in the arson: “Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” (Miller 133).
Gatsby and Loman are not willing to acknowledge or escape their escalating funeral pyres. Both aid the seductress by accepting hallucinogenic reproductions of her promises when reality has rejected her originals as counterfeits. The grim specter of Death cannot break the spell she has bound them within. Gatsby waits stubbornly in his pool for Daisy’s phone call, even as she and Tom set events in motion that bring about his death. Loman one-ups Gatsby by killing himself in a sort of desperate Plan C, hoping that his life insurance money will propel the downward spiraling Biff to glorious heights.
In perhaps an even greater feat than her destruction of Gatsby and Loman, the great seductress charms two individuals who would have the greatest reason to denounce her as a tramp. Nick Carraway and Loman’s wife Linda rarely find fault with their companions’ infatuations with unattainable goals, before or after their tragic deaths. On the contrary, they often applaud their willingness to attempt impossible ventures. Carraway gushes of Gatsby’s greatness, his “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life” and the “romantic readiness” (Fitzgerald 2); never mind that these fine qualities helped condemn him to a grisly murder.
Linda never faults her husband for his failure; she only faults her sons’ failure to acknowledge the greatness of their father. When they jointly question him, she berates them. She asks, “And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When does he get a medal for that? Is this his reward- to turn around at the age of sixty-three and find his sons, who he loved better than life” questioning him (Miller 57)? For a mother to turn on her own sons rather than acknowledge the error of her husband’s actions testifies to the extent of the seductress’ entrapment.
Carraway and Linda Loman have a fervent appreciation for their grandiose dreamers. They do not separate their loyalty to the man from their loyalty to his dreams. They do not want one without the other. If death comes, let him take the whole package, and not leave an empty husk of a man. Carraway says that “Gatsby turned out all right at the end” (Fitzgerald 2). He blames the unpleasantness on the “foul dust,” i.e. the friends who did not appreciate him, that “floated in the wake of his dreams” (…). Linda doesn’t mind the grave if it is not left unattended. Her prominent desire is that respectful attention “be finally paid to such a man” (Miller 56).
Out of the wake of inattentive and indifferent dust emerges the form of the seductress, the American Dream, the American Promise, the American Man-Eater. Amidst the ruin and heartbreak, her illusions vividly depict the ached-for desires of a man’s heart. Her call inspired men to accomplish deed mighty enough to leave a wake, foul or otherwise. These are the attributes of the sly snake and the majestic lioness that whisper for humans to stretch trusting hands into the beautiful asps’ den or lie beside the gently heaving side of the lion. Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, and their ardent devotees, prefer the fatal kisses of the snake and lion to the calloused lifestyle that ignored such delightful whispers.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 2004.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1976.
May 7, 2007
Child Lit
Curious George, by H.A. Rey
The dangerous and often charming allure of childlike mischief lies behind the story and art of Curious George. Rey draws dark curved outlines that give the impression of slyness, and garishly applied watercolors to suggest danger, warmth and fun. This is a book for all mischievous children from 3-7.
Wempires, by Daniel Pinkwater
This is a very strange book, by a very strange author. He draws simply, I believe with just ink. They look very much like scribbles. Despite the crudeness, the art is captivating because it fit the narrator's perspective so well. The story is about a regular little boy who wants to be a vampire, and the smiling, matter-of-fact illustrations leap straight from his words onto the page. Because the pictures are somewhat bizarre, and not much too look at in and of themselves, this book is much for the 6-11 age bracket, and even then, only for kids who can fully immerse themselves in weirdness.
Monsters, by Russel Hoban and Quentin Blake
This is my favorite team of picture book creators. Hoban specializes in telling the stories of little boys making room for their repressed imaginations and Blake gives them life in his messy, junkyard style illustrations. Blake uses ink or pencil outlines and water colors, I believe, cobbling fantasies from all manner of squigglies and doodads. This story makes use of childlike illustration to get directly at the child's imagination, working from scribbles to a "real version" drawn in a more vivid style.
Richard Scarry
Color, variety and constant action characterize Richard Scarry's stories.
The dangerous and often charming allure of childlike mischief lies behind the story and art of Curious George. Rey draws dark curved outlines that give the impression of slyness, and garishly applied watercolors to suggest danger, warmth and fun. This is a book for all mischievous children from 3-7.
Wempires, by Daniel Pinkwater
This is a very strange book, by a very strange author. He draws simply, I believe with just ink. They look very much like scribbles. Despite the crudeness, the art is captivating because it fit the narrator's perspective so well. The story is about a regular little boy who wants to be a vampire, and the smiling, matter-of-fact illustrations leap straight from his words onto the page. Because the pictures are somewhat bizarre, and not much too look at in and of themselves, this book is much for the 6-11 age bracket, and even then, only for kids who can fully immerse themselves in weirdness.
Monsters, by Russel Hoban and Quentin Blake
This is my favorite team of picture book creators. Hoban specializes in telling the stories of little boys making room for their repressed imaginations and Blake gives them life in his messy, junkyard style illustrations. Blake uses ink or pencil outlines and water colors, I believe, cobbling fantasies from all manner of squigglies and doodads. This story makes use of childlike illustration to get directly at the child's imagination, working from scribbles to a "real version" drawn in a more vivid style.
Richard Scarry
Color, variety and constant action characterize Richard Scarry's stories.
Apr 23, 2007
Piddling
ENGL 221
Professor Iris Creagh
Sam Lively
22 April 2007
Free For All
It was the highest priority for Thomas Paine. William Bradford and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony were willing to die for it. Both parties were willing to sacrifice other lives for more of it. The word is freedom. Its mention prompts many an American patriot to shed proud tears, thinking perhaps that the salty water on his or her cheeks is made of the same stuff as Paine’s ink and the Pilgrims’ blood. The dream extends on into eternity, when all will be seated together at a heavenly round table reading the Declaration of Independence aloud to standing ovations. This happy unity finds its surest base on the shared desire for freedom.
Conversely, varying definitions of freedom can introduce strife that could undermine a community. Paine and the Pilgrims held a few basic ideas of freedom in common, but differed fundamentally in more precise understandings of what evils they wished to be free from. The extent of the difference is drastic enough that neither party would survive in a fully realized conception of the other’s ideal society. Yet their legacies survive in close proximity to each other, even referenced in tandem, and modern America apparently sees no hypocrisy in paying homage to both.
The first landmark in the Pilgrims’ ultimate vision of freedom was escaping persecution. Their oppressor was the "lordly and tyranous" Anglican Church; the state church was devoted to routing out Separatists like the Pilgrims (Bradford 26). In this sense, they had much in common with freedom seekers such as Paine. In Common Sense, Paine builds his case for freedom largely on the misdeeds of the English monarchy. Paine rails against tyranny in the political realm, whereas the Pilgrims were focused on the abuses of religion, but the villain is the same in each case.
If they were reading each other’s works up to this point, Paine and Bradford might be voicing hearty exclamations of "Hear, hear!" and "Amen!" respectively. This ease of agreement is likely the reason Paine leaned so heavily on castigating England in Common Sense; it was far easier for him to find fellow believers in the wrongs of tyranny then in rightness of his favored brand of government, and especially in his beliefs about religion.
Religion comes strongly to bear in the determination of evil, and there begins the divergence of Paine’s and the Pilgrims’ values as they pertain to freedom. Paine is adept at camouflaging his unpopular religion of Deism. A cursory reading of Common Sense might give the reader the impression that Paine is a devout Christian. Paine thumps the Bible heavily to make several points in that text; he quotes liberally from I Samuel to undermine the doctrine that kings were established by God’s will. Apparently preferring to leave unequivocal judgements of evil, he quotes this passage, add his own emphasis in capitalizing it: "WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING" (12).
Paine proceeds to make a value judgement that could nestle comfortably into Bradford’s work: "For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government" (12). Bradford writes of the "grosse darknes of popery" (25). This similarity is likely intentional, as Paine was writing for a predominantly Christian audience of mostly Puritan heritage, and it is, perhaps, deceptive. In his Age of Reason, written nearly 20 years after Common Sense, Paine confesses his Deist religious beliefs, stating, "My mind is my own church" (464). Later in this work he discredits the same Bible he made such thorough use of in his prior work.
Under the light of this information, the Bible appears much less in the actual framework of Paine’s arguments in Common Sense than his many allusions to the "scripture" at first indicate. More essential to his case is his humanistic belief in the fundamental right of man to live under the power of his own reason, free from the folly of another. Any Bible verses he includes he uses as confirmation of this belief. Perhaps he took on the auspices of a Bible-believing Puritan in Common Sense to avoid any unjust dismissal from his audience before his arguments were heard. Regardless, his views on freedom are not so rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs as he makes them out to be.
The Pilgrims placed the Bible, religious counsel and supernatural revelation above all other resources available for decision-makers. Their entire reasoning for departing stemmed from their need "to have the right worship of God & discipline of Christ established in the church, according to the simplicitie of the gospell… and to have & be ruled by the laws of God’s word" (Bradford 25). Their lesser respect for man’s reason is evident in a quote from the same passage, decrying the sullying of God’s truth with "men’s inventions." They refer to Catholic rituals, but their disdain for those is not based on differing interpretation of the Bible; they loathe the addition worldly practices not specifically derived from the Bible.
Though his disbelief in the Bible distances Paine from the Pilgrims on a pre-suppositional basis, his reasoning in Common Sense remains only a short leap of faith away from the doctrines espoused in Of Plymouth Plantation. He does not believe in man’s innate goodness, perhaps partaking of the Calvinist doctrine that proclaims man's total depravity. Based on this belief, he does not advocate a libertine freedom, and acknowledges the need for government. He chooses an interesting metaphor for government, calling it a "badge of lost innocence" (4), an image reminiscent, or prophetic, of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.
The Pilgrims wore their badge of lost innocence with gravity. Since they viewed evil as a constant presence in the community, per man’s total depravity, their need for government was great. With unlimited personal freedom came unchecked sin, an epidemic the Pilgrim community had left their homes to be free of. The story of Thomas Granger, taken down by Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation illustrates. Granger was a teenager found guilty of bestiality and sentenced to death. Bradford’s commentary provides an important insight into the Pilgrims’ understanding of the role of government and the need to limit freedoms. The boy could not live because "one wicked person may infecte many" (203).
While Paine may have agreed with Pilgrims’ justice system as it pertained to laws such as the one that condemned Granger, he would part most dramatically with them on the extent of their government and their willingness to impinge on the freedoms of others. The Pilgrims’ believed they possessed a far-reaching commission in the enforcement of morality. A trouble-making Puritan named Thomas Morton settled near Plymouth; he erected a maypole and began to throw parties, providing alcohol and women to any who cared to stop by. According to Bradford, "it was if anew they had revived & celebrated the feasts of the Roman Goddes Flora, or the beastly practieses of the madd Bacchinalians" (141). The Pilgrims resolved to end the celebration by force, storming Morton’s settlement, cutting down the maypole and imprisoning Morton. This was the extent of the Pilgrims’ tolerance for others’ religious freedoms.
Paine, had he lived amongst the Pilgrims and avowed his faith to them, would have likely received similar treatment. His beliefs were as distant from the Pilgrims as were Morton’s, and though he may not have distributed alcohol, any sort of writing meant to persuade the Pilgrim faithful of a more worldly course of action would have earned the designation of evil and made him subject to the government. Paine could not have lived freely with the Pilgrims.
Nor would the Pilgrims have been welcome, or perhaps even safe, in Paine’s free society. In Age of Reason he designates any mixing of church and state as "adulterous." He follows this observation with a vision on the sort of revolution he desires to follow the American and French Revolutions, a "revolution in the system of religion" ending in the sole adoption of Deism. The Pilgrims would likely be casualties of such a revolution.
The time difference between the two parties prevented a true conflict and resolution between their opposing goals. Paine’s careful dilution of his radical religious motivations and his willingness to limit his vision for freedom to what could be expressed in Puritan terms also downplayed the controversy his true views would have sparked. What remains is a shared revulsion for a foreign tyrant, strong belief in the duty of government to free its society of evil and the word freedom. Love of freedom, if the bold dreams and visions freedom promises are kept only to the minds they delight, unites Thomas Paine and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony.
Works Cited
Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation Ed. Harvey Wish. New York, NY: Capricorn Books, 1962.
Paine, Thomas. "Common Sense." The Life and Major Writings of Thomas Paine. Ed. Phillip S. Phoner. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 1974.
Professor Iris Creagh
Sam Lively
22 April 2007
Free For All
It was the highest priority for Thomas Paine. William Bradford and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony were willing to die for it. Both parties were willing to sacrifice other lives for more of it. The word is freedom. Its mention prompts many an American patriot to shed proud tears, thinking perhaps that the salty water on his or her cheeks is made of the same stuff as Paine’s ink and the Pilgrims’ blood. The dream extends on into eternity, when all will be seated together at a heavenly round table reading the Declaration of Independence aloud to standing ovations. This happy unity finds its surest base on the shared desire for freedom.
Conversely, varying definitions of freedom can introduce strife that could undermine a community. Paine and the Pilgrims held a few basic ideas of freedom in common, but differed fundamentally in more precise understandings of what evils they wished to be free from. The extent of the difference is drastic enough that neither party would survive in a fully realized conception of the other’s ideal society. Yet their legacies survive in close proximity to each other, even referenced in tandem, and modern America apparently sees no hypocrisy in paying homage to both.
The first landmark in the Pilgrims’ ultimate vision of freedom was escaping persecution. Their oppressor was the "lordly and tyranous" Anglican Church; the state church was devoted to routing out Separatists like the Pilgrims (Bradford 26). In this sense, they had much in common with freedom seekers such as Paine. In Common Sense, Paine builds his case for freedom largely on the misdeeds of the English monarchy. Paine rails against tyranny in the political realm, whereas the Pilgrims were focused on the abuses of religion, but the villain is the same in each case.
If they were reading each other’s works up to this point, Paine and Bradford might be voicing hearty exclamations of "Hear, hear!" and "Amen!" respectively. This ease of agreement is likely the reason Paine leaned so heavily on castigating England in Common Sense; it was far easier for him to find fellow believers in the wrongs of tyranny then in rightness of his favored brand of government, and especially in his beliefs about religion.
Religion comes strongly to bear in the determination of evil, and there begins the divergence of Paine’s and the Pilgrims’ values as they pertain to freedom. Paine is adept at camouflaging his unpopular religion of Deism. A cursory reading of Common Sense might give the reader the impression that Paine is a devout Christian. Paine thumps the Bible heavily to make several points in that text; he quotes liberally from I Samuel to undermine the doctrine that kings were established by God’s will. Apparently preferring to leave unequivocal judgements of evil, he quotes this passage, add his own emphasis in capitalizing it: "WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING" (12).
Paine proceeds to make a value judgement that could nestle comfortably into Bradford’s work: "For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government" (12). Bradford writes of the "grosse darknes of popery" (25). This similarity is likely intentional, as Paine was writing for a predominantly Christian audience of mostly Puritan heritage, and it is, perhaps, deceptive. In his Age of Reason, written nearly 20 years after Common Sense, Paine confesses his Deist religious beliefs, stating, "My mind is my own church" (464). Later in this work he discredits the same Bible he made such thorough use of in his prior work.
Under the light of this information, the Bible appears much less in the actual framework of Paine’s arguments in Common Sense than his many allusions to the "scripture" at first indicate. More essential to his case is his humanistic belief in the fundamental right of man to live under the power of his own reason, free from the folly of another. Any Bible verses he includes he uses as confirmation of this belief. Perhaps he took on the auspices of a Bible-believing Puritan in Common Sense to avoid any unjust dismissal from his audience before his arguments were heard. Regardless, his views on freedom are not so rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs as he makes them out to be.
The Pilgrims placed the Bible, religious counsel and supernatural revelation above all other resources available for decision-makers. Their entire reasoning for departing stemmed from their need "to have the right worship of God & discipline of Christ established in the church, according to the simplicitie of the gospell… and to have & be ruled by the laws of God’s word" (Bradford 25). Their lesser respect for man’s reason is evident in a quote from the same passage, decrying the sullying of God’s truth with "men’s inventions." They refer to Catholic rituals, but their disdain for those is not based on differing interpretation of the Bible; they loathe the addition worldly practices not specifically derived from the Bible.
Though his disbelief in the Bible distances Paine from the Pilgrims on a pre-suppositional basis, his reasoning in Common Sense remains only a short leap of faith away from the doctrines espoused in Of Plymouth Plantation. He does not believe in man’s innate goodness, perhaps partaking of the Calvinist doctrine that proclaims man's total depravity. Based on this belief, he does not advocate a libertine freedom, and acknowledges the need for government. He chooses an interesting metaphor for government, calling it a "badge of lost innocence" (4), an image reminiscent, or prophetic, of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.
The Pilgrims wore their badge of lost innocence with gravity. Since they viewed evil as a constant presence in the community, per man’s total depravity, their need for government was great. With unlimited personal freedom came unchecked sin, an epidemic the Pilgrim community had left their homes to be free of. The story of Thomas Granger, taken down by Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation illustrates. Granger was a teenager found guilty of bestiality and sentenced to death. Bradford’s commentary provides an important insight into the Pilgrims’ understanding of the role of government and the need to limit freedoms. The boy could not live because "one wicked person may infecte many" (203).
While Paine may have agreed with Pilgrims’ justice system as it pertained to laws such as the one that condemned Granger, he would part most dramatically with them on the extent of their government and their willingness to impinge on the freedoms of others. The Pilgrims’ believed they possessed a far-reaching commission in the enforcement of morality. A trouble-making Puritan named Thomas Morton settled near Plymouth; he erected a maypole and began to throw parties, providing alcohol and women to any who cared to stop by. According to Bradford, "it was if anew they had revived & celebrated the feasts of the Roman Goddes Flora, or the beastly practieses of the madd Bacchinalians" (141). The Pilgrims resolved to end the celebration by force, storming Morton’s settlement, cutting down the maypole and imprisoning Morton. This was the extent of the Pilgrims’ tolerance for others’ religious freedoms.
Paine, had he lived amongst the Pilgrims and avowed his faith to them, would have likely received similar treatment. His beliefs were as distant from the Pilgrims as were Morton’s, and though he may not have distributed alcohol, any sort of writing meant to persuade the Pilgrim faithful of a more worldly course of action would have earned the designation of evil and made him subject to the government. Paine could not have lived freely with the Pilgrims.
Nor would the Pilgrims have been welcome, or perhaps even safe, in Paine’s free society. In Age of Reason he designates any mixing of church and state as "adulterous." He follows this observation with a vision on the sort of revolution he desires to follow the American and French Revolutions, a "revolution in the system of religion" ending in the sole adoption of Deism. The Pilgrims would likely be casualties of such a revolution.
The time difference between the two parties prevented a true conflict and resolution between their opposing goals. Paine’s careful dilution of his radical religious motivations and his willingness to limit his vision for freedom to what could be expressed in Puritan terms also downplayed the controversy his true views would have sparked. What remains is a shared revulsion for a foreign tyrant, strong belief in the duty of government to free its society of evil and the word freedom. Love of freedom, if the bold dreams and visions freedom promises are kept only to the minds they delight, unites Thomas Paine and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony.
Works Cited
Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation Ed. Harvey Wish. New York, NY: Capricorn Books, 1962.
Paine, Thomas. "Common Sense." The Life and Major Writings of Thomas Paine. Ed. Phillip S. Phoner. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 1974.
Dec 30, 2006
Can't ever get enough
Writing is a craft. Must put my feet to the plow. That last sentence doesn't sound write. I think I've been away too long.
I've been pretty cynical about most forms of art. I'm inclined to poke at most artistic offerings, in hope (or despair?) that the piece in question will cave under the pressure and disintegrate into devilish foolishness or spring out, jack-in-the-box!, a moronic, drooling noise-maker.
A little more practice here, a little time in the Word there, a lot of prayer over there, and some reading behind that corner, and a masterpiece should gently slip out. Anyone can do it right?
Or is my skill finding fault and tearing, rendering me useless in telling a new story, or in the scientific field, doing new research?
Slipping away... Spear that thing before it's lost down the the storm drain.
I've been pretty cynical about most forms of art. I'm inclined to poke at most artistic offerings, in hope (or despair?) that the piece in question will cave under the pressure and disintegrate into devilish foolishness or spring out, jack-in-the-box!, a moronic, drooling noise-maker.
A little more practice here, a little time in the Word there, a lot of prayer over there, and some reading behind that corner, and a masterpiece should gently slip out. Anyone can do it right?
Or is my skill finding fault and tearing, rendering me useless in telling a new story, or in the scientific field, doing new research?
Slipping away... Spear that thing before it's lost down the the storm drain.
Jun 2, 2006
Edward Teach, mysterious fellow.
I had him at Cambridge. Rather shy. Not an outstanding pupil, but curious enough. Absent-minded, I remember thinking of him, but not the idle sort that frequented my classroom. That mind was always somewhere specific. I wasn't surprised when I heard he left for a sea voyage.
Ed, yeah. Nice enough fella. A bit of a drunk on Sunday afternoons. He'd rear himself up and holler all sorts of fancy philosophy at me. I just tried to say 'yessir' to everything but that got him right mad and he got to more drinking. Had a few friends, lowlifes if you ask me. A cripple, and some soldiers... oh, and that preacher. Strange bunch. Talked up storms.
Ohh, Ed. Sweet man, sweet man. Those eyes! Softest brown you'd ever seen, but so fiery too. You always could count on a lark and a laugh in his company. Not that he was without his faults. Such a man for spirits, and so moody, like a woman, he was.
Excellent seaman. Really took pride in his work. A steady hand, even green.
I had him at Cambridge. Rather shy. Not an outstanding pupil, but curious enough. Absent-minded, I remember thinking of him, but not the idle sort that frequented my classroom. That mind was always somewhere specific. I wasn't surprised when I heard he left for a sea voyage.
Ed, yeah. Nice enough fella. A bit of a drunk on Sunday afternoons. He'd rear himself up and holler all sorts of fancy philosophy at me. I just tried to say 'yessir' to everything but that got him right mad and he got to more drinking. Had a few friends, lowlifes if you ask me. A cripple, and some soldiers... oh, and that preacher. Strange bunch. Talked up storms.
Ohh, Ed. Sweet man, sweet man. Those eyes! Softest brown you'd ever seen, but so fiery too. You always could count on a lark and a laugh in his company. Not that he was without his faults. Such a man for spirits, and so moody, like a woman, he was.
Excellent seaman. Really took pride in his work. A steady hand, even green.
Apr 4, 2006
Blackbeard was not always so mean. Dorothy Hudson can attest to that. She met him on the docks at Charleston. He wasn't like other seamen. He was educated, thoughtful and colorful. He was no Blackbeard then, but relatively cleancut.
He was a man in desperate need of adventure. The schools of England had not sufficed, the long ocean voyage, the exotic ports: all were trifles in his bored, cynical mind.
He was a man in desperate need of adventure. The schools of England had not sufficed, the long ocean voyage, the exotic ports: all were trifles in his bored, cynical mind.